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Walmart Announces Digital Price Labels for Every Store in the U.S. By the End of 2026 (cnbc.com) 194

Posted by EditorDavid from the tags-you're-it dept.
Walmart is "rolling out digital price tags to replace the old paper ones," reports CNBC, planning to implement them in all U.S. stores by the end of the year: Amanda Bailey, a team leader in electronics who works at a Walmart in West Chester, Ohio, estimates that the digital shelf labels — known as DSLs — have cut the time she used to spend on pricing duties by 75%, time that has freed her up to help customers. She also said the DSLs are a game-changer because Walmart's Spark delivery drivers looking for an item will see a flashing DSL so they can more easily find the product...

Sean Turner, chief technology officer of Swiftly, a retail technology and media platform serving the grocery industry, said that while it makes sense that people are raising questions about dynamic pricing, the real issue is store-level efficiency. "Digital shelf labels solve some very real operational headaches. They cut down on manual price changes, reduce checkout discrepancies, and make it easier to keep in-store and digital promotions aligned," Turner said. All of that can mean fewer surprises at the register for shoppers and better-tailored promotions. "For consumers, the biggest benefit is accuracy and consistency," Benedict said. "Shoppers want to know the price they see is the price they pay. Digital labels can also make it easier for stores to mark down perishable items in real time, which can lower food waste and create savings opportunities."
A Walmart spokeswoman promised CNBC that "the price you see is the same for everyone in any given store." But the article also notes that several U.S. states "are looking to ban dynamic pricing. Pennsylvania became one of the latest states to introduce a bill outlawing the practice, following New York's Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act, which became law in November."

And at the federal level, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján recently introduced the "Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores" act, which would ban digital labels in any grocery store over 10,000 square feet, while Congresswoman Val Hoyle is sponsoring similar legislation in the House. "There needs to be laws and enforcement to protect consumers," Hoyle tells CNBC, "and until then, I'd like to see them banned outright."

CNBC adds that "While there is no reported use of digital shelf labeling being tied to surge pricing yet," in Hoyle's view "it's only a matter of time."
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Walmart Announces Digital Price Labels for Every Store in the U.S. By the End of 2026 More

Walmart Announces Digital Price Labels for Every Store in the U.S. By the End of 2026

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  • Digital price labels aren't a problem... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Sunday March 22, 2026 @09:54PM (#66055200)

    We have had digital price labels in some supermarkets here in Australia for a while now and we do not have dynamic pricing or other issues. To be fair we have strong consumer laws and a regulator with teeth enforcing the laws.

    • I see nothing wrong with the digital labels as well. They eliminate paper and time waste. However law makers should probably get in front of any dynamic pricing issues. Perhaps put a max limit to the number of times a price can change per day.
      • Another option is for stores to be open about the frequency of the pricing changes. They could say something like we update pricing every 3hrs at 9a 12p 3p 6p and 9p. That gives customers the start their shopping right after a price change and the option to make their way to checkout before the prices change. Stores will have to get used to the waves of customers.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jhoegl ( 638955 )
          Imagine having to take a picture of every thing you want to buy, because they could change it by the time you reach the front.
          People are too trusting that stores wont do some nefarious stuff to get their money.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by cruff ( 171569 )
            Exactly, what's to stop the store from changing the price at the register when the barcode is scanned? Why would banning digital price tags stop that practice?

            • The article is the usual PR regurgitated text, and /. readers should catch this along with the self-serving "expert" quotes in the article.

              "Sean Turner, chief technology officer of Swiftly, a retail technology and media platform serving the grocery industry, said that while it makes sense that people are raising questions about dynamic pricing, the real issue is store-level efficiency. "

              Restating: "Person X, who works for a company selling the technology, says that the technology will be great for grocery s

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Bert64 ( 520050 )

              Require that the price cannot go up over the course of the day, but allow reductions (eg selling off stock that needs to be sold today due to expiry date etc). If the prices are going up, they need to be raised and on display before the store opens for business, or at a fixed time if the store is open 24 hours.

            • what's to stop the store from changing the price at the register when the barcode is scanned?

              Gonna have to take a photo of the price tag every time you take something off the shelf...

            • Exactly, what's to stop the store from changing the price at the register when the barcode is scanned? Why would banning digital price tags stop that practice?

              Many [mass.gov] states [michigan.gov] have [ct.gov] protection [ca.gov] for that on the books already.

      • They eliminate paper and time waste.

        ... and replace them with electronic waste and energy waste. Plus the extra cost of running power to every shelf in the store.

        I will be curious to see what the effective lifetime of these electronic labels is...

      • > However law makers should probably get in front of any dynamic pricing issues

        New York [skadden.com] just straight up banned it.

        =Smidge=

      • Prices should only change at most once per day and when the store is closed. If the store remains open 24/7 then make it very clear that prices for items may update between 1a and 2a so shoppers beware.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Same in my place in Europe. They have been standard for 10 years or so in some stores.

      • Same in the UK, Aldi in particular, The labels turn red when the lower the price of something they want to clear out.

        • Same in the UK, Aldi in particular, The labels turn red when the lower the price of something they want to clear out.

          Sounds like Aldi. When they have a "sale" (5 cents off is not a sale), the paper tag is red.

    • The reason digital labels are bad for America (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @12:39AM (#66055384)
      Is because we all here know we have already given up and let the corporations do literally anything they want. And we know we can't stop them anymore.

      So when we see them doing something like this we all are just bracing for the other foot to drop. Because we don't have those consumer protection laws and we know we can't get them because about 45% of our country is dumber than dirt and it's easy enough to stop another 6% from voting and we are a winner take all first past the post voting system so that's all you need to win an election...

      Basically our political system that would fix shit like this is fundamentally broken and we all know it but we don't like to talk about it because politics is supposed to be something dirty you don't talk about like sex or suicide or PTSD or whatever. It's not something you bring up in polite society...

      • I expect targeted surge pricing. Like plane tickets will go up in price if they know you searched before, or if you mentioned a wedding or if someone close to you is also buying a ticket.

        And the it might get so random as to base prices on willingness to pay. Already this is happening with delivery services and taxis.

        And then it might be; late at night, last store open and they can raise the price of baby formula because they know you are out.

        And then it might be that you said something in social media that

        • If I drove into the wealthy part of town to buy it. As long as I wasn't going to the overpriced grocery stores the regular stores in the better neighborhoods had lower prices because they had people who could afford to take the time to shop around, often stay at home moms.

          So even before digital price tags stores and figured out a way to screw people. Another case of the high cost of being poor. Basically stores in poor neighborhoods know that you probably don't have the time or maybe even the car to dri

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          First, dynamic pricing is not enabled by the labels. Just how would it work?

          Sure the tags can show different prices, but what if two people are reaching for the same product? What price does it show? And if prices change between when the product was taken and when checkout happens - what then? It would result in people holding up the line to do price checks and then showing cashiers photos of the tags if the price didn't ring up correctly.

          And you have to remember some people spend a lot of time in stores -

    • We have had digital price labels in some supermarkets here in Australia for a while now and we do not have dynamic pricing or other issues. To be fair we have strong consumer laws and a regulator with teeth enforcing the laws.

      That's good and all, but does Australia have the right number of people actively look to enforce those laws?

      "Bigger punishment if caught" is way different (and much less effective) than "bigger chance of getting caught".

    • Same in Germany. I think REWE was the first, years ago, then Lidl and Aldi followed.
      The only problem with those is that sometimes they are broken and show whatever.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      In the UK it was the budget supermarkets, Aldi and Lidl, that had them first, in fact. One of the ways they keep prices down is by quickly adopting new technology like this.

      I'm hoping that the price of large format ePaper displays comes down. Ideally the market will be flooded with used ones being upgraded, so we have a standard model that can be easily hacked to do other things.

    • It's been a long time since I've seen a price label in any European supermarket that wasn't a digital label.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by havana9 ( 101033 )
      This is the same in Italy. Digital price label are used in a percentage of supermarkets, even medium sized ones. Normally they aren't used in the vegetables, fresh fish, meat, and deli areas, where there is not packaged food, I suppose for regulatory reasons.
  • If the company is saving money using the digital labels, then they should not have any problem with a ban on dynamic pricing. It seems like changing the shelf price is an opportunity for blatant fraud, since a customer could pick up a product and by the time they got to the register there's a different price in the system.
    • I mean technically that can happen even today with paper labels but tends not to due to the cost of sending someone out to manually update labels. Stores would these days likely update pricing on a daily basis while they are sending people out to restock the shelves after hours.

    • Re:Connection b/w dynamic pricing and digital labe (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Sunday March 22, 2026 @10:33PM (#66055238)

      I can attest that one of the major grocers in Southern California does not do dynamic pricing like this. Our prices change on Wednesday once. A couple items will go on deeper discount on Friday and that price changes prior to the store opening. Sometime before the store reopens on Saturday, the Friday deals have reverted back to the price they were on Thursday. At no point do our tags change throughout the day. Pepsi products don't magically go up in price during the lunch rush nor does Ice cream change price based on the temperature rising outside. We don't do stuff like that. We never have.

      We also have digital tags in our store. They're a net gain overall, though I will admit the amount of information crammed onto the tag is a bit hard to read at times. Can't wait for the city to come at us with, your text is to small for the seniors to read...They can carry a magnified glass. Heck, I've seen seniors doing this since before I was an adult and I'm in my 40s now.

  • "Round and round she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows."

  • Let me provide some more information here (Score:3)

    by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Sunday March 22, 2026 @10:25PM (#66055228)

    I work in a grocery store in San Diego. We just switched over to digital tags a month ago. They have their pluses and minuses that I won't get into here but overall, I like them. It's super easy to update pricing and we've been able to divert most of our price change workers to other tasks. It's also really easy to add a new item on the shelf, toss up a digital tag and then assign it to that item, all in a minute or less. Before, there were a lot more steps, not counting literally walking from the shelf to the price change room and then back to the shelf.

    Regarding "dynamic pricing". I'm not sure how they are defining this, but the price you see on the tag is the most you'll have to pay for the item. It's never going to be higher then that at checkout. With that said, if you are part of the loyalty program, you earn "points" for shopping with us and the points can be exchanged for either items or money off the total cart or a specific category ($5 off meat, $7 off bakery). None of this has anything to do with digital tags though. That all existed prior to digital tags.

    We also offer digital coupons that everyone with a smart phone can access. In San Diego City (not county), we passed a local ordinance to punish the 99% of us by insisting that if a grocer offers a digital coupon, it must offer that coupon as a physical piece of paper as well. We were told by our city council that seniors are be over-charged because they can't figure out the app. The end result of this ordinance is every single national brand that offered a digital coupon pulled out of the city of San Diego. The app now only offers store coupons. It's pretty funny because you can just set your app to outside the city limits (10 miles away) and get ALL the coupons. We'll honor them at the register. As a consequence, I tend to do more shopping in an adjacent city then in san diego, because why pay more? Stupid city council.

    All that 3rd paragraph also pre-dates digital tags.

    Last but not least, if you use the store app, we also offer "personalized pricing" on items you buy frequently. Anyone that buys these items frequently will see them but only if you are already buying that item. Now, if the store puts your favorite item on sale, you will still always get the cheapest possible price, either the sale or your personalized price. I think this is a great system myself. I would buy the item at the sticker price but because I always buy it, they give me a little off. It definitely makes me want to keep shopping there, as usually this personalized price is the best price in town.

    I think this fourth paragraph is where people think some are being over-charged and others aren't, yet it's totally based on your personal shopping habits. Killing this would just drive up my total cost, so really, FUCK YOUR GOVERNMENT PISS OFF AND LEAVE MY FUCKING COUPONS ALONE!!!

    P.S. Fourth paragraph also pre-dates digital sales tags.

    • If the price changes on lettuce while I'm wandering through the rest of the store how does it not charge me the new price at the checkout?

      If the price only changes when the store is closed anyway then there is no issue.

      • But banning digital tags wont change that.

        What if they go slap a new paper tag on the shelf while you're doing that?

    • I'm the opposite from you on the digital coupons. I really feel strongly that if they require me to sell myself and what I'm buying to advertising / trackers in order to get the best deal, I'll just go to another store. even if it's more. Yeah...I could just buy at the higher price, but I'm doing the voting with my wallet. Honestly, I'm probably the 0.01% of the population that cares about this...probably less, so they don't care. Just the other day I was buying something, and then I noticed it was $2 cheap

  • Gas stations do it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Sunday March 22, 2026 @10:37PM (#66055244)

    So why is it such a problem in grocery stores? If there is surge pricing, during emergencies or whatnot it would prevent scalpers from going in and buying all the toilet paper and then reselling it. Someone's going to make a profit it just depends on whether it's the grocery store or not.

    • once you start pumping they can't change the price also the sign when going up is the 1st thing changed with the pumps going up after that.
       

    • Unless surge pricing goes to $10k for a roll of toilet paper people will hoard it. Going from $1 to $10 isn’t going to stop scalpers. As AC below has stated, limit one per customer is the real answer.

    • So why is it such a problem in grocery stores?

      Grocery stores are unusual in that you routinely buy a large variety of various small-ish items. People don't often do that at clothing stores, home-decor stores, etc.

      It's hard enough to do comparison shopping on groceries as it is (who wants to track the price of 50 individual products?), but now the prices might not even stay mostly the same from day-to-day, or even morning-to-afternoon.

      • Prices often already don't match shelf stickers. I see it all the time. If customer catches it, they get the lower price, if they don't, they don't even know that they chose the item based on a lower posted price. Stores blame it on manual pricing tags. With electronic ones, they will have no excuse that someone forgot to update the price.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Just make surge pricing illegal, outside of a few narrowly defined areas where it is desirable.

      We should move away from a society where middle men and prince gougers are prevalent.

    • If there is surge pricing, during emergencies or whatnot it would prevent scalpers from going in and buying all the toilet paper and then reselling it.

      Fun fact, supermarkets are not that clever. We've had digital labels here for a decade already, they are just the norm. But I recall during the height of COVID while there was a run on toilet paper our local supermarket had toilet paper boxes "Buy 1, get 1 free". I asked the staff W-in-T-actual-F, and they mentioned that prices and discounts are set by corporate 6 weeks in advance, and they couldn't change them if they wanted to since they were legally binding once advertised, such as in junk mail that appa

    • So why is it such a problem in grocery stores? If there is surge pricing, during emergencies or whatnot it would prevent scalpers from going in and buying all the toilet paper and then reselling it. Someone's going to make a profit it just depends on whether it's the grocery store or not.

      Gas stations are allowed to do it under the guise of convenience. But even they cannot price gouge certain products (like gas).

      And enough with the word manipulation. Call a spade a fucking spade already. There is no such thing as “surge” pricing in the grocery store. Legally that’s called gouging. For damn good reason too. Don’t let the ignorant word-weaslers try and make this something else, or we will ALL enjoy trying to buy eggs for $20 a dozen, because “rush hour

    • Are you really this naive?

    • Because I can avoid purchasing things at a gas station relatively easily. Grocery stores often have de facto monopolies with two or three of them in a market and if you look at who the major shareholders are and therefore who the major owners are it's all the same people sitting on each other's board of directors.

      Folks don't realize how much concentrated ownership there is in the country because they don't realize that buying stocks is buying ownership and they don't know how few people actually own the

  • And that is: The register must honor the lowest price displayed in the last 6 hours.

    There's nothing wrong with a store dynamically lowering prices. We just don't want them to go up while we're shopping.

    Virtually all shoppers are wandering around with smartphones with cameras, so it's easy to take photos of the tags. If you catch the register not following the rules, you get some payback. (What is an implementation detail. Double the difference? One item free? Depends on how frequently that store has a

  • Curious what the downsides are? (Score:3)

    by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @01:50AM (#66055436) Homepage

    What are the downsides of these devices, from any in the know?

    Are they rechargeable?

    How long do they last?

    How are they updated, are they wifi, or something else?

    Can they be hacked? What's the plan if that happens and all the shelf labels are hacked to replaced prices with something awful like the text 'go eat a vegetable'?

  • And not just using loyalty program coupons for hidden dynamic pricing, but to instantly change prices based on the weather, world events, dynamic manufacturer collusion like with Pepsi, and who's near the shelf. Algorithmic price gouging incoming.

  • Does this tech eliminate the key objection to printing basic income money faster than prices rise, that "menu costs" become negligible?

    If you get a printed basic income and stores raise prices costlessly and your income goes up in lockstep, why can't you forget about nominal inflation and convert nominal prices to units of real purchasing power, which won't change under an indexation scheme, no matter how fast nominal prices may rise?

  • Dynamic pricing is not a new thing... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 ) <treboreel@live.com> on Monday March 23, 2026 @02:50AM (#66055480) Journal

    They act like dynamic pricing is a new thing ? NOT..

    It was the standard for almost the entire human history. There were no price tags and you haggled for a discount, so if you sucked you paid more. If the merchant thought you were a rube you paid more...

  • I live in Europe. The supermarkets all have them. And often they are out of power or displaying an error message. Usually in forgotten areas, but still not great.
    Paper tends to at least display something.

  • When I go to a store, I would like to be able to scan product UPC codes and see the current price for those products. This is also useful if the price tag is missing or if I can't read it, because it is too small, or too far (at the bottom shelf just above the floor), or because my eyesight is not sharp enough. Is this a lot to ask for?

    I want to be able to do this this without installing the store's app, but with a 3rd party app (or my own). I also want to be able to scan the receipt and get an itemized

  • If anyone wants some cheap e-ink displays that's where you need to look.

  • This is the first step toward adjustable prices. Weather is hot, all cold beverages are 25 cents more. Snowstorm en route, snow shovels are now $40.00 instead of $25.00. It is price on demand.

  • The flip side (Score:3)

    by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @08:12AM (#66055812)
    While dynamic pricing's bad result is price increases during surges or based on predicted shopping habits and ultimately individual pricing, it can also make it easier for stores to drop prices if competitors have specials.

  • Awesome! (Score:3)

    by angryman77 ( 6900384 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @09:29AM (#66055986)
    I can't wait for prices to update based on the individual walking by them, based on their social media profiles and other metadata filtered through some unknowable algorithm.

  • Easily fixed, so long as the legislators don't try to overcook the law with too much complexity. The law should simply say, "You can have digital shelf price labels, but you can't change the price on those labels while the store is open to the public. If your store is open 24 hours a day, you can change the price between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., but you must make a clear announcement to everyone in the store immediately before the change and every five minutes until the change is completed, in every language comm

  • Have had these for years.

    And in Aldi's case...like everything they do...it was to reduce operating costs.

  • I'm confused, most stores like that already have digital price tags, and have for many years. Even Walmart has been using them already for a while now.

  • This is far more profitable (Score:3)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @10:13AM (#66056096)
    By maintaining a database of every buyer not only from past purchases but all online history purchased from third parties, it will make way for dynamic pricing that will overcharge absolutely as much as each individual customer can bear.
  • Walmart uses 3rd party distributors to stock their shelves. For me personally, that led to me picking up several Rock Star energy drinks that I then could not purchase, because the bar codes had never been entered into Walmart's computer system. Fix the obvious problems first, guys! What guarantees that every product on the shelf is linked to a digital price tag, if they aren't even entered in the Walmart database?
  • I no longer use self checkout at Walmart, because Walmart's official policy is to arrest anyone who makes a mistake and misses an item checking themselves out. Strangely, the system doesn't catch anyone ringing up the same item twice... hmm... (I've done both.)
  • For real-time price gouging, remember the electronic price gouging system in place at Wallmart. Insta-Gouge: P
  • Really? DSL? sigh.

  • Kohl's has been using these since forever. What's wrong? The batteries go dead, the sku is too small to read, and the product is nowhere near the label.

  • Notice how the prices seem to go up when you get near the product? We track you around the store, big spender.

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